More of the region's rural and suburban schools are performing below the state average as they deal with more low-income students and those with limited English skills.

A Rockford Register Star analysis of the latest school test scores tell a sobering story of poverty and education and the increasing challenges non-urban schools face in teaching today's students.

For the past four years, 100 elementary and middle schools in Winnebago, Boone and Ogle counties have straddled the fence of mediocrity when it comes to state test scores. About half of the schools tested above the state average.

This year showed a dramatic shift in those numbers, with 43 schools above and 57 below.

Only two schools — Centennial Elementary in Polo and Meehan Elementary in Belvidere — went from below the state average to above. Of the nine schools that fell below the state average, only one, Froberg Elementary, is in Rockford.

The rest are in places like Machesney Park, Winnebago, Oregon, Creston, Rochelle, Capron and Poplar Grove.

They represent Rockford's near suburbs and collar towns, places where safer communities and better schools have long been selling points for newcomers and people looking to escape Rockford's high tax and crime rates.

These schools have much more in common than declining test scores. Most have seen double-digit increases in low-income student populations since the Great Recession. Most also have higher numbers of students who are behind in English because they grew up speaking a different language or speak a different language at home.

Addressing these factors is a costly venture; public school systems have long received millions of dollars each year because of scale-tipping poverty.

But for many of the schools that fell below the state average this year, serving larger populations of low-income students is a relatively new challenge. And because they don't have the big enrollment numbers that Rockford and Chicago do, they typically don't get as much money to throw at the problem.

"This used to be a rarity," said Lori Fanello, superintendent of the Boone-Winnebago Regional Office of Education. "Back in the 1990s, you didn't see as many schools with large numbers of low-income. Today, you're seeing it in Harlem, in Belvidere, in North Boone."

Sweeping changes

Rochelle Superintendent Todd Prusator has had a front-row seat for the demographic shift.

The five-school, 1,700-student district has gone from 33 percent low-income students in 2003 to 62 percent. In 2000, 4.7 percent of its students had limited English proficiency; this year, it's 21.1 percent.

Page 2 of 5 - "There's a reason why those percentages are on the report card," Prusator said. "They have an impact."

Rochelle has instituted intensive bilingual education for students at its elementary and middle schools to address the increasing numbers of Spanish-speakers entering the district. Central Elementary, one of the nine schools that dropped below the state average, features bilingual classrooms for kindergarten through third grade.

The district provides an after-school program for low-income students at four of its schools. About 250 students attend every day for about two hours. They spend about an hour on education and the other hour is enrichment.

When it comes to low-income students, enrichment is anything that helps make a low-income student's life more like that of a wealthy student. It's about visiting places and interacting with new and different people.

"Regardless of the scores, we're doing the right things," Prusator said. "We can see good growth. ... It's unfair to compare us to schools that don't have the same demographics."

Playing catch-up

The correlation between poverty and educational attainment is well-documented, from the landmark Coleman Report of 1966 to new research from universities and education think tanks across the country.

Wealth matters more so than any other factor, including race. Racial achievement gaps in education are closing, but the achievement of high-income students versus low-income students is increasing.

Schools with a majority of poor and language-deficient students often have to work twice as hard for students to perform half as well as students from wealthier schools.

They battle against a multitude of social, cultural and financial obstacles that stand between their students and success, offering intervention services, tutoring and enrichment programs in an effort to get children in their schools on a level playing field.

"When you're living in poverty, you don't do the same things as people who are not in poverty. You're not exposed to the same life experiences and you lose the ability to connect things to those experiences," said Travis Woulfe, the Rockford School District's executive director of improvement and innovation.

"If you've never been to the ocean, how do you put the ocean compared to a lake compared to the Rock River? ... You hear fewer words at home. You hear different words. You have fewer opportunities to participate in activities. You move more. ... You are always trying to play catch-up.

"As the numbers of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch rates creep up around us, there will be more hurdles for those schools. It saddens me, but I'm not surprised."

Magic of education

Representatives from dozens of tutoring services greeted Tiara Spates when she arrived at Ellis Elementary this month.

Spates said Isaac is having problems in reading and math, and Azriel seems to be doing just fine in kindergarten, but both qualify for the service, so she's taking advantage of it.

"This helps a lot," she said. "I wouldn't be able to afford all of this on my own."

Ellis is one of the poorest performing schools in Rockford this year. According to adjusted scores released by the district, Ellis went from 32 percent of its students meeting or exceeding state standards in reading last year to 17 percent. In math, it went from 23 percent to 13 percent.

Addressing problems like low ISAT scores and high poverty populations is par for the course in Rockford.

Principal Maceo Rainey saw West Middle School's ISAT scores go from 17 percent in reading and 21 percent in math in 2011 to 30 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Nearly 90 percent of the students at West receive free or reduced-price lunch.

They do things differently at West, Rainey said, using a combination of high expectations and incentives to encourage success.

Students who get good grades get perks: They go on special field trips. They can participate in Saturday activities at the school. They get uniform-free Fridays.

Students failing in two or more subjects get mandatory tutoring over lunch. They eat in a classroom and complete missing work. When they raise their grades, they get to go back to lunch with their friends.

"Being with peers is very important, but we tell students, 'That's a privilege'," Rainey said. "Sometimes students of poverty don't see education as a means of empowerment. It's our job as educators to show them the magic of education."

Meets vs. exceeds

Another factor in the Rock River Valley's significant one-year performance drop could be a rude awakening for school leaders and parents.

The nine schools that fell below the state average this year had a disproportionately large number of students who met state standards last year and a small number of students exceeding them. Most data analysis lumps both categories — meets and exceeds — into a single score for each school.

The problem is, meeting or exceeding standards is a wide berth. Some students barely meet the cut-off, and some score in the 90th percentile. They're all counted as "meeting or exceeding" standards.

Under this system, schools across the state could get similar composite scores but be made up of radically different student bodies.

One school could have 80 percent of its students meeting and exceeding standards, with 60 meeting and 20 exceeding. Another school, also with a score of 80, could have the opposite.

Page 4 of 5 - The result? Suddenly, one year, when the bar is raised just enough, the first school will get a lower score and drop below the threshold while the second stays on.

Those nine schools had a large number of students who were just meeting standards last year.

At Winnebago Middle School, 73 percent of its students met reading standards last year and 13 percent exceeded standards.

It was 70 percent to 11 percent at Rochelle Middle School and 69 percent to 12 percent at North Boone Middle School.

Keep the pipeline going

Weaker testing performance because of a rise in low-income students isn't just a school problem, community leaders said. It's everybody's problem.

"All communities are going to have to start absorbing these challenges," said Jason Anderson, economic development director for the city of Rochelle.

"We're probably in a better position than most to absorb them because of the investments we've made as a community. The grade schools and high school are very much focused on English as a Second Language education."

Communities need to support struggling schools with jobs where parents can make a good living and by raising the equalized assessed value of property in the area so schools get a financial boost.

"We have to keep that pipeline going," Loves Park Mayor Darryl Lindberg said, referring to the path from grade school to high school to trade school or college to a local job with good pay and benefits.

If the pipeline dries up, he said, companies won't want to come to town and those here already will start to wonder why.

Loves Park and Machesney Park are served by the Harlem School District. Two of its elementary schools went from above the state average last year to below it this year.

The number of low-income students in the district has grown from 25 percent in 2003 to more than 50 percent in 2013.

A tipping point

The Register Star analysis put a magnifying glass to state trends, as well.

According to demographic information released Thursday, Illinois is on a educational precipice.

The percentage of low-income students has increased steadily, from 37.9 percent in 2003 to 49.9 percent in 2013 — a 31 percent increase in 10 years.

This probably will be the last year that public schools in Illinois have fewer low-income students than not.

More low-income students means more students needing food assistance, more students without adequate school supplies or clothing, increased mobility and increased homelessness.

"We try to address that through funding," Fergus said. "Schools that qualify get a portion of their general state aid that's a poverty grant to help address students' needs. ... Of course, this comes at a time when we're seeing cuts to state funding in education."

Page 5 of 5 - The number of students with limited English proficiency, a label often put on students who are behind in their English skills, has increased by nearly 50 percent statewide, from 6.3 percent of all students in 2003 to 9.4 percent in 2013.

Despite the state's low-income and language proficiency numbers, scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test have risen the past 10 years. The average has gone from 64 percent of students meeting or exceeding standards in 2003 to 82 percent in 2012 to 58.8 percent this year because of the new scoring system.

The disparity between the state's scores and low-income population is likely a product of another troubling disparity: funding per student.

The amount of money each school is able to spend on each child varies greatly from district to district. Schools in wealthier communities take in more money in local property taxes. Schools in poorer communities take in less.

Some of the state's poorest communities spend about $6,000 per student a year, Fergus said.

Rochelle spent just under $8,000 on each student last year. North Boone spends a little more than $9,000.

The highest in the state? A handful of districts chime in at $25,000 a student.